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One through ten: A newb's experience playing League of Legends.

Typhendorf·11/15/2016, 6:16:12 PM·1 votes·303 views

Dear League of Legends community,

I joined the League of Legends community recently and hit level 11 this morning. I've had a lot of good and bad moments and figured I'd share my limited experiences with the game thus far. I understand not everybody will appreciate what I have to say but I want you all to know I am not trying to flame, gain sympathy, etc. The reason I want to share my experience with the community is to see what, if anything, results from doing so. I'm not exactly sure where I should post this as this post could cover many topics so I've decided to leave it on the miscellaneous board.

On Halloween day ( 15 days ago ) I made my account and was excited to dive into the game after seeing Worlds and having found the game along with the champion/skin promotions on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. I logged into the game but found I was unable to get the promotion codes from Facebook and Twitter while I was unable to find the YouTube promotion on the game's YouTube channel. I messaged support and was automatically replied to by an oddly entertaining "BLITZCRANK BOT" that unlocked Alistar/Unchained Alistar for me. Creating a follow-up put me in touch with an employee that unlocked Garen/Dreadknight Garen and Tristana/Riot Girl Tristana for me. This was done quicker than I had expected and left me feeling optimistic.

During the day it took to unlock the promotional champions/skins I had been playing some Co-OP vs. AI. The bots fell easily and by the time I had hit level four I had purchased $25.00 in RP to spend in the Teemoing shop where I purchased Malzahar/Vizier Malzahar, Vladimir/Vandal Vladimir and Vi/Neon Strike Vi for 70%/60%/50% off. I know I could have unlocked these champions with IP if I had patiently waited but felt capitalizing on these sale prices would add some nice variety and stability to my pool which only of free-rotation champions and Alistar. I was excited to try the Normal ( Blind Pick ) matches against other players.

Normal ( Blind Pick ) was much different but I boldly went where many of the other "smurfs" I wound up with had been before. These "smurfs" would belittle myself and anybody else they thought were new just for being new while belittling one-another for not playing up to( what often times seemed to be impossible ) expectations. These happenings have not been enough to stop me from having fun but they do hurt my enjoyment of the game but have been apart of almost all of my losses( and some of my wins ) while also leaving me nervous about both trying to take in-game risks and trying to get involved with the community. Learning to play in an environment where you feel more verbal punishment than game-related punishment for mistakes is difficult and draining.

In spite of this I continued to try and climb levels. I also tried the ARAM mode which feels almost robotic and began purchasing my first T2 Runes at the cost of 1 IP each. I don't feel like the runes have been of any significant help and asking for tips during or after game would often respond in being told not to play the champion I was playing. I began ( and still feel ) isolated from this community and believe I've made no progress in my growth as a player aside from having unlocked new summoner spells and mastery points. With this having been said I'm still having fun and attempting to play as Poppy in the jungle has been a fun change of pace.

In closing I have a few non-specific things that don't fit in their own paragraph. While playing with the earlier-mentioned Vandal Vladimir skin I've received both compliments and outrage for having an "old" skin as a new player. I've also unlocked some boxes for/from the loot system and noticed some of my rewards ( Blacksmith Poppy, Nosferatu Vladimir ) are not normally available for sale like Vandal Vladimir. I also had issues with these "boards" syncing with my in-game account and had some help from the game's efficient support staff in updating. Sadly my boards level is now stuck at nine and it seems like I will have to ask for help from support regularly to keep my profile synced with my in-game account.

Thanks for reading, Typhendorf.

5 Comments

Primaquarius11/15/2016, 6:22:02 PM2 votes

Tier 2 runes like Flat Armor Penn and Flat Magic Penn can help you have early game power, especially if youre trying to save IP for the Quints. I use these T2 runes and they work, seeing as the hybrid Penn runes I want are 800 each

DemainaNyx11/15/2016, 11:35:36 PM2 votes

I completely understand how you feel, but don't give up if you enjoy the game.

I joined last November and spent my first 30 levels playing against beginner and intermediate bots. Once I got to the point I could easily stomp the bots, I decided to give Normals (both draft and blind pick) a try to see how I compared to others. I met a lot of these smurfs as well who would not only berate you for missing things you didn't know about, but they would contradict themselves constantly which made it worse. I played ADC most of the time and got focused (like ADCs should be) but no one would peel so I decided maybe it would be better for me to support cause I can make good players better instead of trying to carry the game myself with my limited knowledge.

Played a game as Soraka and got yelled at every time I didn't save someone. Ryze dives in 1v4 and complains I didn't ult to save him, even though there was no way my ult would save him from that. Same game, Ryze is in a 1v2 and both enemies are low so I ult to save him. He ends up dying still cause he ran instead of fighting and then he raged at me for wasting ult.

This happened in multiple games. You exhaust the ADC in a teamfight and jungle kills someone, so you get raged at. You somehow get a kill with a Soraka auto attack and your ADC goes AFK cause you stole the kill from them (KSing if you haven't heard that yet). You miss a hook as Thresh/Blitzcrank and the entire team rages even though they've missed most of their skill shots as well. I was honestly so frustrated with the game at this point that I was wondering what I was going to do.

Eventually I got introduced to ARAM and found a game mode that actually encouraged people to work together. Teamfights was one of the things that I understood early on but there was still plenty that I didn't understand about the game. ARAM helped me out a lot because I got to play champions that I would never play and actually learn what their abilities did or how they would do a combo. Once you actually know what abilities each champion has, it becomes so much easier to play against them. If you didn't know that Vlad had a pool ability, or that it made him untargetable so that he can avoid damage, it's really easy to be annoyed how he can outplay. Plus since it's random, no one expected me to be amazing at the characters I got, or if they did they didn't rage about me not playing them perfectly.

Once I got my confidence back up, I went back to normals and started to do better. You still get the occasional obnoxious player yelling at you for things beyond your control, but I've learned to tune them out or to at least /mute if needed. Eventually I started learning things like how important CSing is, how to manage a wave, understanding the level 2 advantage, the importance of mixing AD and AP in a team comp, importance of objectives like towers and dragons, etc. There is still plenty I'm still learning, but I've grown a lot since I started.

The best advice I can offer you is to if you really want to keep playing and maybe get better at the game is to watch others play either through spectating or watching a youtuber who explains why they make the decisions they make. Lolnexus.com is a great place to get some higher level spectating done. You don't get the knowledge of why they made the decisions they did, but you can at least look for a specific champion and see how that champion is played so you can learn them. And youtube will always offer multiple options for learning. I honestly recommend watching full gameplays though cause you can see how the player handles the whole game, not just certain parts of it.

Some interesting ones to watch are "Unranked to Diamond" series cause you'll see how these top tier people still struggle with dumb teammates, which at least makes me feel a little better about my own play. Losing when you team is making dumb mistakes is frustrating when you feel like you could've won, but when you realize that these skilled players can't carry bad teammates, you realize it isn't just that you didn't carry hard enough (which is what a lot of people will say).

Another thing to do is watch your replays. I signed up for aof.gg so that most of my games are recorded there so I can go back and watch them. I don't do it often but sometimes there are games where you aren't quite sure why you lost or how a teamfight ended that way and by having it recorded, you can go back and watch it from different angles. Also check replay.gg for another replay site.

Lastly is look up some ideas of how to build. Mobafire is ok but their builds can be strange and should only be used as an idea of what to get, not something to follow to a T. Champion.gg offers a solid idea of items to get by showing the highest win rate build as well as the most common item builds. Same thing though, you don't necessarily want to follow these builds entirely. This game is very dynamic. Taking Ashe for instance, one game she may build item 3085 item 3031 item 3072 item 3036 item 3006 item 3046 . The next game she may build item 3085 item 3508 item 3139 item 3026 item 3033 item 3006 . Most champions do not have a straight build that you follow every game. They may have a few core items that synergize with their kit (Ashe applies slows on each auto, runaan's applies that slow to up to 3 people, and crit from infinity edge or essence reaver makes the slow stronger and her attacks stronger), but the rest is completely situational. I had an ARAM game where I built Ashe with item 3085 item 3031 item 3111 item 3065 item 3071 item 3091 . Strangest looking build in the world and I would not recommend it in a normal game. But since their entire team was AP burst, I was able to survive the burst due to having 3 MR items while building items that worked well with Ashe's kit. This is one part of the game that people forget a lot and has cost me quite a few times cause no one builds to counter the one person doing all the damage.

I'm not amazing at the game but I can offer advice if you'd like. You can add me if you want. There is a lot to learn in this game so it may take a while to explain it since I am still learning myself.